


It Seems The Stranger's Always You

by IamShadow21



Series: Ain't No Angel Gonna Greet Me [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Boys in Skirts, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Getting Together, Hawkeye's Purple Miniskirt, Hurt Clint, Hurt Natasha Romanov, Kissing, M/M, Movie Night, Musicals, Steve Feels, Steve Needs a Hug, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Timestamp, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Movie night, my turn, no excuses, no late comers, no pants</i>, Tony mass-emails to everyone.</p><p>It's the first time in a month that they've all been in the one place, and since Natasha and Clint are both nursing benchable injuries, he can bank on them staying put for at least the next twelve hours.</p><p>He puts in a massive order for finger foods, and sits back and waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Seems The Stranger's Always You

**Author's Note:**

> So I accidentally wrote a little sequel cookie fic to [I Walked A Thousand Miles Just To Slip This Skin](http://archiveofourown.org/works/738336). This is the payoff for those who might have wished that Tony and Steve got together in that fic. 
> 
> Those who haven't seen Hedwig and the Angry Inch might not get the deeper meaning in some of the things that are said, but you should still be able to follow it. And you should see Hedwig if you can, it's a lot of fun. I have the film adaptation on DVD, but I was also lucky enough to see it performed live as part of the 2006 Mardi Gras festival by iOTA, and it was amazing. I hear it's being revived in the US with Neil Patrick Harris playing Hedwig, and I'm certain he can do an awesome job of it, so those who can get to it should try and see it. It's an incredible experience.

_Movie night, my turn, no excuses, no late comers, no pants_ , Tony mass-emails to everyone.

It's the first time in a month that they've all been in the one place, and since Natasha and Clint are both nursing benchable injuries, he can bank on them staying put for at least the next twelve hours.

He puts in a massive order for finger foods, and sits back and waits.

 _I'm not wearing no pants_ , Steve replies.

 _What ARE you wearing, then, Cap? Tell me more..._ he can't help but shoot back.

There's a long pause.

 _This is a sex thing, isn't it?_ Cap replies, and Tony can almost see his scrunched up, disapproving face. _I'm not coming without pants, Tony._

 _I didn't mean THAT, darn it_ , arrives before Tony even has time to think of a reply, immediately followed by, _SHUT UP, TONY._

_It's like you've got this filthy mind under that clean-cut dashing look and those adorable blushes. I don't even know who you are any more._

_I'm wearing pants, and you can't make me NOT wear pants, and that's final._ Tony can hear the pout and the petulance as clearly as if Steve was standing next to him.

_Hell, wear a dress if you can get one that fits over your ridiculously broad shoulders._

Tony isn't expecting any reply, let alone the one that appears.

_Natasha says I've got the perfect figure for a halterneck._

Fortunately, no one but JARVIS and the bots sees him spit a mouthful of smoothie all down himself.

*

Seven-thirty rocks around and the breakfast bar and the coffee table are heaving with the randomest, most awesome snacks Tony could think to order. There are tiny hot dogs and sliders, thick cut steakhouse cheese fries and smoky barbeque ribs, coleslaw, seven layer dip and shish-kabobs up one end, sushi, oysters, cheese, pate and caviar down the other. There's a whole actual wooden cask of hard cider, and enough Coke and Dr Pepper to drown in plus quarts of Madagascan vanilla bean ice cream in case anyone wants to make root beer floats. And, of course, five different flavours of popcorn.

It looks like enough for a party of twenty or thirty, but with Steve and Bruce and Thor (and Clint, who eats like a garbage disposal), Tony knows there won't be much left over.

“It's almost like you missed us, or something,” Clint says from the doorway, his eyes wide as saucers. 

He's balancing easily on a set of substandard crutches that Tony has already offered to upgrade and pimp out and possibly add lasers to. Coulson said no, the buzz-kill.

He's also wearing a purple vinyl mini-skirt that somehow precisely matches the purple of the fibreglass cast that covers his leg from toes to mid thigh, and the bruises on his eye and jaw.

“I almost don't want to ask, the potential answers are just too delicious,” Tony says, looking Clint up and down.

“I went shopping,” Clint says, blithely crutching his way over to the couch. Tony kicks over the footrest for him to rest his cast on. “Got sick of trying to wrestle pants over this piece of crap.” He thwaps the cast lightly with one of the crutches, before handing them to Tony, who leans them in an out of the way corner. “Thanks for the idea, by the way.”

“Glad to be of service. Doesn't really surprise me that you went stripper, rather than Sunday School teacher.”

“Everyone goes on about my arms, but seriously? I put a lot of work into these legs, and they deserve some appreciation. Well, leg, singular. Hey, feed me.”

Tony doesn't fetch and carry for others, he's been raised to be the receiver of things that have been fetched and carried by people paid to do so, but even in his scandalously short and well co-ordinated skirt, Clint looks pretty beat-up and sore and pathetic, and, well, Tony's been there. He grabs a platter from the kitchen and loads it up with a little bit of everything, then moves a lamp from a side table to make room for it, so that Clint can graze without having to move his battered body.

When Tony straightens up, Natasha's standing there, a smile quirked across her beautiful face. Her hair is patchy, sections of scalp bare and mazed with harsh black lines of stitches. “Is it Opposite Day?”

“Sure, why not, sit down. You're making me hurt just looking at you.” Tony grabs a plate and puts on a bunch of things he thinks that maybe Natasha might deign to eat. “The last time I had that many stitches in my head, even I couldn't talk my way out of hospital,” he says. “Pepper was angry with me for about two months. I was in so much trouble, I was in the dog house _in another country._ ”

“It's superficial,” Natasha says, immediately honing in on a hot dog, which Tony would not have predicted. He'd had her pegged as a caviar girl.

Clint snorts, and Natasha elbows him in retaliation. He yelps and clutches his ribs, wheezing hard.

“They're only bruised, you big baby,” Natasha says, but there's affection in the tone of her voice.

“Yes, but my everything is bruised,” Clint whines.

“Then stop jumping out of windows,” Natasha says, like it's the obvious solution.

“I was jumping _after you_ ,” Clint argues.

“How Coulson doesn't have an ulcer, I have no idea,” Tony says.

“Dumb luck, and a lot of antacids,” Coulson says, gliding into the room like the devil called by name. “Is that shrimp cocktail?”

“Everyone is wearing pants but Clint, I'm disappointed,” Tony says.

“You're wearing pants,” Natasha points out.

“I'm the host, I don't count,” Tony says.

“Wait for it,” Clint says, and then Thor comes striding into the room wearing some kind of bright pink kilt-thing that looks like it belongs on a Japanese school-girl. Even Tony can't deny, in the face of the evidence, that Thor can officially make anything look majestic.

“I didn't say I went shopping _alone_ ,” Clint says with a smug grin.

*

In the end, they number seven. Pepper was due back in time, but her plane got delayed in Helsinki due to a snow storm, and Rhodey's off doing classified manoeuvres somewhere doing something Tony's not supposed to know about, but does, because, well, he's Tony, and just about anyone's security is a piece of cake for him and JARVIS to hack into.

When he tells JARVIS to roll it, and the opening to _Hedwig and the Angry Inch_ begins to play, Clint cracks up laughing and says, “Oh, _awesome_ ,” with an unholy amount of glee.

The rest of them don't seem to have seen it before, so it's quieter than some of their movie nights have been in the past, when mockery, sing-alongs and line-quoting have been participated in with enthusiasm. There's a minor uproar when Thor objects to his name being dropped in _Origin of Love_ , but Natasha quickly placates him with a plate of ribs bigger than his head and a reminder that it's fiction, not slander.

Steve is sitting next to Tony, and he's very still. Tony wonders if maybe, he's gone too far, but a quick glance at Steve's face shows he's engrossed in the film, watching the musical numbers and oddball flash-cuts play out with a kind of wonder.

It isn't until about halfway through that Tony looks over and sees Steve with honest-to-God tears flowing down his face that he realises what he's done.

Because for all that choosing the film was a joke, pointing back at the events of months ago (and a deliberate ploy to poke at Steve's sensibilities with numbers in it like _Angry Inch_ ), when it really comes down to it, _Hedwig_ is a story about a boy who made a decision to undergo a painful and dangerous transition and travel to a new and alien world _where he is abandoned and isolated from those he loves_. And Tony really, really didn't mean to poke Steve's crazy in such a callous, careless way.

“Cap?” he whispers.

The only sign Steve gives that he's heard is that he bites his lip, hard, like he's trying to keep in a terrible sound. 

“Steve?” Tony says. 

He reaches out a hand and places it on Steve's cheek. Steve's skin is damp and hot, and when he finally turns to look at Tony directly, Tony can see that Steve's pupils are dilated to black wells in the dim light and that his lashes are wet and clumped together in tiny points. He looks shattered and vulnerable and Tony aches for him.

“I didn't mean to, I didn't think,” Tony whispers.

Steve shakes his head minutely, lets his eyes dip shut for a moment. Tony understands that he's forgiven, that Steve always forgives him, whether he deserves it or not.

“C'mere,” Tony mumbles, tugging Steve closer, intending to wrap him up in a hug, but Steve leans in instead, lets his mouth slide over Tony's, hot and wet.

Tony feels himself shiver, sucks in a sharp breath of surprise. Steve's lips taste of the salt of his tears, but inside his mouth, Tony can taste the root beer and ice cream from the float he'd made him, personally, before the movie started.

There's no tearing off of clothing, no loud gasps or moans, no dirty talk or promises of things to come, just this thrilling, covert exploration of each other's mouths. Steve's breathing is still jagged with emotion, tears still tickling down into the creases of Tony's hand. Any moment, Tony expects a loud exclamation from Thor or Clint, but the silence holds as the movie continues to run, until Steve has to break the kiss to breathe in deeply. He lets Tony guide him, then, pull him down without resistance. He buries his face in Tony's neck, his shoulders shaking. His hand is wrapped around a fold of Tony's shirt as if for comfort.

Tony looks up, and Bruce is staring at them across the darkened room. He holds his breath, but Bruce just looks back towards the screen, a shadow of a smile on his lips. Tony feels an incredible rush of gratitude, and before the film has ended, he's thought of three new things he wants to design for Bruce and/or the Hulk, just for the kindness of staying silent.

When the credits roll, and everyone is standing and stretching and groaning, Tony ducks his head to murmur, “Come to bed with me,” in Steve's ear.

“All right,” Steve replies.

*

“That's not what it's about though,” Steve says, later, when they're wrapped around each other, just touching what they can reach for the sake of touching, learning each other inch by inch at a lazy, gentle pace. “Oh, it is, I suppose, but not really.”

“What is it about, then?” Tony asks, kissing a soft and sacred spot on Steve's collarbone.

“It's about loving yourself, all of yourself, completely, not mourning who you might have been, had things been different, had you made other choices, taken other chances. And letting that love complete you and define you, not the love of others.” Steve's hand is large and firm, cupping the edge of Tony's ribcage. His breath is soft and warm against Tony's face. “It's the hardest thing I'll have done, if I ever manage it.”

Tony nuzzles up under Steve's jaw, places a kiss right where the pulse flutters under his skin, steady and regular. “I think you might be right about that,” Tony sighs, nestling down to rest with his cheek against Steve's skin, and Steve's hand in his hair.


End file.
